Comrades belovèd, see, the fire burns low, To join the unseen ranks; nor will we swerve At last we ordered are as one by one Our Captains have been called, their labors done, A little while and these tired hands will cease But now the fire burns low, and we must sleep That watch below shall come, in starry skies, A fairer dawn, whereon in fiery light The Eternal Captain shall his signals write; On shall the mighty Nation mové, led by a hand divine. Time is the fire that hath consumed them all. Statue and wall In ruin strew the universal floor. II Greece lives, but Greece no more! Its ashes breed The undying seed Blown westward till, in Rome's imperial towers, Athens reflowers; Still westward-lo, a veiled and virgin shore! III Say not, "Greece is no more." Through the clear morn On light winds borne Her white-winged soul sinks on the New World's breast. Ah! happy West Greece flowers anew, and all her temples soar! IV One bright hour, then no more Shall to the skies These columns rise. But tho' art's flower shall fade, again the seed Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar. V Art lives, tho' Greece may never From the ancient mold As once of old Exhale to heaven the inimitable bloom; Yet from that tomb Beauty walks forth to light the world forever! THE VANISHING CITY I ENRAPTURED memory, and all ye powers of being, Strike in the human heart some deeper sense! And many-columned peristyle, endue The mind with beauty that shall never fade; Tho' all too soon to dark oblivion wending – II Thou shalt of all the cities of the world Famed for their grandeur, evermore endure Imperishably and all alone impearled In the world's living thought, the one most sure THE VANISHING CITY Of love undying and of endless praise For beauty only chief of all thy kind; Thou cloud-built, fairy city of the mind! Then, wakening from his dream within a dream, 203 He flings the faded flower on Time's down-rushing stream. III O, never as here in the eternal years Hath burst to bloom man's free and soaring spirit, Joyous, untrammeled, all untouched by tears. And the dark weight of woe it doth inherit. Never so swift the mind's imaginings Caught sculptured form, and color. Never before,Save where the soul beats unembodied wings 'Gainst viewless skies,—was such enchanted shore Jeweled with ivory palaces like these: By day a miracle, a dream by night; Yet real as beauty is, and as the seas Whose waves glance back keen lines of glittering light When million lamps, and coronets of fire, And fountains as of flame, to the bright stars aspire. IV Glide, magic boat, from out the green lagoon, This is Art's citadel and crown. How still The innumerous multitudes from every zone, That watch and listen; while each eye doth fill Here where the visual sense faints to its goal! Of the wise architect's supreme and glorious art! O joy almost too high for saddened mortal! As through all time the matchless thought of thee! Pouring a century's wealth on one dear hour. Then vanish, City of Dream, and be no more; Soon shall this fair Earth's self be lost on the unknown shore. THE TOWER OF FLAME (THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, JULY 10, 1893) HERE for the world to see men brought their fairest, Whatever of beauty is in all the earth; The priceless flower of art, the loveliest, rarest, Here by our inland ocean came to glorious birth. |